The University of Saskatchewan students won the 2015 Mars rover challenge, the European Rover Challenge. A number of teams from different countries of the world took part in the challenge held in Poland.

The winning team’s students, comprising the University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team (USST), beat other teams participating in the challenge to design a robot able to survive in the harsh environment of the Red Planet.

In the 2015 Mars rover challenge, the USST team engineered a 35-kilogram rover. The rover, 15 kilograms short of the minimum of the challenge, made the team grab the first spot. The team is famous for taking part in such competitions. The winner team confirmed their victory by posting a picture of them with first place prize. The USST team has won $1000, a 5000 PLN voucher and three Edison embedded computers.

The teams participating in the competition were from the US, India, Colombia, Bangladesh and some other countries. The USST team finished the competition with 456.5 points. Team of Bialystok University of Technology in Bia?ystok, Poland, gave tough competition to the USST team and won 420.2 points. With 367.8 points, McGill University team stood third and took bronze to home.

The European Rover Challenge was founded in 2007, and in Europe, it is considered as the biggest open air robots and space event. The USST team expressed its happiness by writing on its blog. The team wrote, “We are so happy with our outcome, and we can’t wait to get some rest. We’re looking forward to continuing work on the rover, and have seen a lot of cool design ideas this weekend”